Crowds turn out this chilly November morning for ancient Wroth Silver ceremony in Warwickshire

This year's Wroth Silver was held, as ever, at Knightlow Cross on 11th November, before dawn.

Poet Barry Patterson supplied this report.

There isn't a cross these days and there hasn't been for a long time but there is a small mound, The Knight's Low, and the stone at its top holds a square cut hole which was once the cross base in times long gone.

Before there were hedges this wayside cross and meeting place would have looked out over the road which is now the A45, near Stretton on Dunsmore.

A group of 50 of us or so attended the ceremony, some of us locals, come to pay a now obsolete form of land taxation; some visitors, attracted by the unusual age of the ceremony.

Described as an English tradition by Norman invaders, the ceremony is probably the oldest continuous event of this kind in Britain.

Sam Rees, Land Agent of His Grace the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, standing next to Councillor Simon Ward, the Mayor of Rugby, read out the Charter of Assembly as members of surrounding villages threw coins into the stone declaring "Wroth Silver!"

The proceedings were over quite quickly.

It was a cool morning with an almost but not quite red sky clearing to the east.

The party then withdrew to the hospitality of Khara Schrijvers, the landlady of the The Royal Oak in Brandon, for an excellent cooked breakfast. It's great to see this pub open again after the flood damage last winter.

She said: "We are excited to become part of this unique historic ceremony and we are looking forward to meeting all the loyal followers of this very special ceremony.

"Toasts were made with the traditional rum and milk and we heard speeches from Mr Rees, Councillor Simon Ward the mayor and Mr William Waddilove of Wolston who has now attended the ceremony at least 40 times and who works hard to keep it going."

The morning concluded with my poem speculating about whether there *is* a knight within the low and what he would have thought about all of this.